“That’s your mint chip.” Mari held out her hands, like, What else?
“This is not what I ordered, querida.”
“Yes, it is, Papi.” Mari kept her voice low, soothing, like she was talking to a sick child. She slipped her hand around his arm and nudged him toward a table that had just opened up. “It’s your favorite, remember?”
A surge of anger crossed his face, all his features tightening and twisting.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the counter girl said meekly. “Did you want something else?”
“I want you to get my order right, that’s what I want, miss.”
“It’s just ice cream,” Mari whispered. Her fingers turned white against Papi’s arm.
“I understand that, Mariposa, but it’s not what I ordered. If they can’t get a simple order right, how do we know they’re not ripping us off? How do we know they didn’t overcharge? They’re thieves.” Papi slammed the ice cream down on the service counter. The red plastic spoon toppled to the floor, flinging hot fudge sauce in its wake. “You people are criminals. I want my money back.”
“No problem, sir. I can do that.” The counter girl plastered on a nervous smile. “If you’ll just calm down, I’ll get—”
“You want me to calm down? So you can trick me again?”
“Do you want something else?” Mari’s voice trembled, her eyes darting around at the tourists in the ice cream shop. They were staring now, inching closer to the door.
I put my hand on Papi’s arm like I’d just come into the middle of things. I held out my chocolate peanut butter cup sundae, my own favorite, the thing I’d ordered every time since before I could see over the counter. “I think you got mine by mistake, Papi.”
Papi stuck his finger in the middle of my dish and scooped out some whipped cream. I held my breath as he popped it in his mouth.
A smile stretched across his face. “So you’re the thief.”
Relief spilled from Mari and me in a flood of goofy laughter. Papi watched us curiously, his head tilted like Pancake’s when he’s listening for the rabbits.
I apologized to the girl at the counter with all the usual excuses—he’s tired, he’s confused—and stuffed a twenty in the tip jar. I didn’t have twenties for everyone though, and the tourists continued to watch us with a mixture of curiosity and embarrassment as we found our way to the table.
I made peace with Papi’s mint chip sundae while he happily devoured my chocolate peanut butter bliss. Mari poked at her milk shake with a straw, but she hadn’t taken a sip. When Papi shuffled across the room to toss out his trash, Mari looked at me, her face pale.
“How did you know . . . How did you get him to calm down like that?” she asked. “He doesn’t even like peanut butter.”
“Pick your battles.” I scraped the last bits of chocolate from my sundae. “Sometimes it’s easier to go along with it or try to distract him.” I thought about the meltdown at Grant’s Pharmacy, standing there in the tampon aisle with Emilio, singing that song from Oklahoma! It felt like years ago.
“Mint chip is his favorite,” Mari said.
I shrugged. “Not today.”
“Juju. I’ve never seen him eat another kind of ice cream our entire lives.”
“Things change.”
“I’m telling you—”
“Mari.” I dropped my sundae cup on the table. “I know it’s crazy. I know it sounds totally bat-shit impossible that he can remember every mile of his road trip thirty-some years ago but not a stupid ice cream flavor. Or that he can tell me what he was wearing the day he bought that bike, but he can’t remember the way home from the river trail in the backyard. He helps Emilio take apart all those gears and knows exactly what they’re called and where they go, but last week I caught him trying to call Lourdes through the TV remote. It’s messed up and it’s not fair and it’s killing us, but it’s the way things are.”
Mari wiped her nose with a balled-up napkin. “I didn’t know it was that bad. I knew he’d been wandering, forgetting stuff here and there. But I didn’t . . . I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make this better.” It was only a whisper, faint and full of agony that pierced my heart. “You’re amazing. You’re so good with him and you did everything exactly right and I just . . . I don’t know what to do. I’m scared, Jujube.”
I’d never seen this Mari, a frightened version of the girl who’d once threatened to castrate an entire family, the girl we called Wrecking Ball, the one who smoked out the window and made six- and seven-figure book deals over the phone.
I squeezed her knee under the table. Papi had returned.
“I like this place.” He glanced around, taking it all in again. “I wonder if they have mint chocolate chip?”
“I think they do.” I scooped up the rest of our trash. “Next time you should get that.”
The rain returned, and we helped Papi into Mari’s car and headed back to the house, the sky crying huge, fat tears. It wasn’t until we got all the way home that I realized we’d forgotten Emilio’s black raspberry waffle cone.
He stood before us in the driveway, covered in grease and grime, rain running into his eyes as we tumbled out of the car.
“She works,” he said. “She freaking works.”
Chapter 25
Valentina leaned gallantly on her kickstand in the middle of the barn, the lift tucked away behind her. Emilio jumped on the kickstart and she caught, first try. He cranked the throttle and revved the engine, and when he climbed off, Valentina kept running, no sputtering.
“Told you.” He beamed, proud as Valentina herself, and all the butterflies inside me simultaneously beat their wings.
Papi let out an earsplitting whoop. Emilio high-fived him, and when he turned to Mari, she threw her arms around him. Like, an actual hug.
“I can’t believe you got that thing running!” she said. “Did you see Papi’s face, Juju?”
I nodded, and in that moment it was like she suddenly realized she’d embraced a notorious Vargas boy. She released Emilio and took a step back. Her mouth still held the shape of a smile, but that was fading too, and she brushed her shirt absently.
Emilio stiffened, but I turned my eyes to Papi, walking around his motorcycle with an expression of pure glee. He stopped with one hand over his heart and rested the other on the engine. When he looked up, his eyes were glassy.
“This means the world to me, Juju. Emilio. You . . . I can’t believe . . .”
The bike coughed and rattled, and Papi jumped, even though she didn’t sputter out.
Please be okay, don’t freak out, it’s just a noise, you’ve had a long day. . . .
“She’s just gettin’ used to the air again.” Emilio shut Valentina down. “Still needs some cleaning out, and we should get touch-up paint for the front and rear fenders. Needs a new seat, too. But once we get it all put back together, she’ll be her old self again. Even got the rust off the chrome. Polish it up, she’ll be good as new.”
Mari took Papi inside, and we were alone again, me and Emilio and my racing heart. I couldn’t stop thinking about Papi at the ice cream shop, how tired he looked, how he’d been spending less time in the barn, how he’d gone inside with Mari right after the bike spooked him.
Now, more than ever, Emilio had to finish the job. To get Valentina running perfectly—no more coughing, no more sputtering. To paint and polish her, good as new, like he’d said.
As long as it was ready before Papi got too sick to ride it.
“What else do you need?” I asked. He raised a flirty eyebrow, but I shook my head. “For the bike. It has to be running, a hundred percent. Like, soon.”
“Calm down, princesa. I’m almost there.” He smiled teasingly, but there was a new hesitation in his eyes, a shadow across his face like clouds in the sky.
Silence stretched between us. I kicked the ground, looked at the ceiling, finally looked into his eyes. “How much longer, do you think? On the bike, I mean.”
“I don’t know,
Jude. I’ll keep you appraised of the situation.” Emilio turned on his heel, reaching for his toolbox.
“I’m sorry. I’m being a crazy person. As usual. Come back.”
His resistance only lasted a heartbeat before he turned to face me again. He rested his hands on my hips, touched his forehead to mine. “Answer my question. Yes or no. Will you come on the trip with me?”
Emilio was offering me a chance to cross state lines, to see the country, to watch the sun rise and set in dozens of different places, to zoom away on a motorcycle beneath Orion’s unwavering gaze.
I never knew how badly I’d wanted it until he’d said the words. I want you to come with me. . . . Say yes.
It was the trip of a lifetime just waiting for me to take it.
But behind all those desires, all those daydreams, I saw Papi, a man who’d ridden thousands of miles and led a motorcycle gang and flirted with waitresses and fled from jaguars. After that, Valentina went into storage, slowly decaying under a tarp, and now that she was almost restored, it was too late. He might never get another chance to ride. Again. Ever.
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, watched it settle against Emilio’s lips. He shivered and whispered my name, and in that moment I knew the whole truth.
I was falling in love.
I am losing my father.
With Emilio Vargas.
To smoke and shadow.
My heart fluttered.
My heart aches.
To feel it.
To deny it.
Life.
Death.
Possibilities.
Endings.
Stars swam before my eyes and the world tilted and Emilio breathed my name again and everything was all at once cruel and spectacular.
“Emilio, I want to go with you,” I whispered.
He pulled me closer, wrapped his arms around me.
I rested my hand on his chest and felt his heartbeat through my fingertips. “But I can’t answer yes or no. It depends on Papi, and then there’s Mom, and my sisters, and the Valentina stuff. . . .” I closed my eyes. “I’m not saying no. Just . . . I need to think about it some. Not no, though.”
“Not no. I’ll take it for now.” Emilio pulled my hand from his chest and kissed my palm. His lips trailed to my wrist, lingered before moving gently to my shoulder. I kept my eyes closed as he kissed my neck, my chin . . . and then his mouth covered mine, and I gasped.
“Are you for real?” I whispered against his lips. “Yes or no.”
“You’re killing me, princesa.” His words slid into my mouth as our bodies pressed together.
“Let’s go for a ride.” I spoke fast, desperate to say it without breaking our kiss. “Now. I don’t care where. Just take me—”
“Jude.” Mari’s voice traveled straight into my skull. I twisted away from Emilio and turned to face her in the doorway, but it was too late—no way she missed us. The sudden lack of him felt so cold and wrong that I had to wrap my arms around myself to keep from shivering.
Mari fumed, hands on her hips. “You told Papi he could ride that thing?”
Emilio fidgeted on his feet beside me, and I knew he was waiting for me to take a stand. To stop letting her treat me like a kid, as if every important decision was already made, handed down like the toys and the stereo equipment.
“I didn’t. . . . He said he wanted to,” I said. “You know the bike is special. You’ve seen him—it’s like he remembers it and something inside him connects. If he wants to ride, it’s his choice.”
“I can’t even begin to tell you what a horrible, dangerous, stupid idea this is.”
“It isn’t. It’s a great idea.” I turned to Emilio. “Tell her.”
Emilio looked at me with pleading eyes, and immediately I regretted dragging him into this, but still. He was my star witness. He knew Papi was made for the bike. He knew what this meant to him, even more than I did.
“It isn’t my place to say.” He ran a hand over his bandanna and his eyes held an unspoken apology and I knew it, knew he was sorry, knew he was right. It wasn’t his place.
I pushed anyway.
“That bike means everything to Papi,” I said. “You can at least say that much, right?”
“Jesus!” Mari threw up her hands. “What are you asking him for? You’re only doing all this because you have a crush on Mr. Motorcycle here. Don’t pretend this is about what’s good for Papi.”
“But it is! He wants—”
“It doesn’t matter what he wants, Juju. He’s not riding.” Mari dragged her fingers through her white-blond hair, all bed-headed and mad. “You never should’ve gotten his hopes up. Both of you. He’s totally crushed.”
She stalked back into the house, shaking her head the entire way, and I crumpled onto the workbench.
“Here’s what I think.” Emilio sat next to me and took my hand. I met his gaze, expecting anger but finding only kindness, his endless patience. “Your father shouldn’t ride. It’s too dangerous. That’s what I think, for real. He’s not healthy. You gotta trust your sister on this one. She’s right.”
“But you know what this means to him and—”
“You have no idea.” Emilio’s voice was low and scratchy, and when he sighed, close to my ear, it was hard not to imagine waking up next to him, lying in his bedroom with all the maps, his shirt tossed carelessly over the desk chair, bare shoulders against the pillows.
“Why are you siding with Mari?”
“It’s not siding. It’s . . . yeah, I wish he could ride. Okay? I wish I could be there to see him do it. But I can’t.” Emilio’s hands tightened around mine. “If anything happened to him . . .”
“Something is happening to him.” I pulled out of Emilio’s grasp and crossed over to the bike. “That’s the point. And he can’t fight it forever. It was stupid to try.” I grabbed Valentina’s handlebars as if they could grab me back, make the everything-will-be-fine promises my sisters couldn’t. “The least we could do is let him ride his own motorcycle.”
“What if he got hurt?”
“He’d live.”
“What if he didn’t?” Emilio clenched his fists, his voice rising as he stood from the bench. “What if he hit a tree? A house? A person? What if he died on the side of the road, alone, all because you didn’t want to tell him no? What then, Jude? You get your way, and he dies.”
His words hit me like sharp rocks. In all our time together, Emilio had never spoken about Papi’s death, and now he was shouting, enraged. It erupted from nowhere; his chest and arms shook with it. I closed my eyes to shut out the pictures of Papi lying in the road, helpless and still, but they kept coming anyway and my lungs ached and I wanted to scream. . . .
“It would kill you,” Emilio said. “That guilt never leaves you. I’m telling you, for the rest of forever you have that thing haunting you.” His voice cracked and dropped to a whisper, the rage suddenly gone. “I couldn’t watch you go through that, princesa.”
He reached for my hand, but my own rage took over. Rage at my sister, rage at the demon, rage at life’s cruel jokes. My heart thudded in my ears and my mouth tasted like copper and I shoved him away, hard as I could, pushed until he stumbled backward and caught himself on the workbench.
His face crumpled. I hated myself for touching him that way, but I couldn’t erase those pictures from my head.
Papi, dead. Papi, gone.
Because bike ride or not, I knew it was coming, and there was nothing I could do to change it, no one I could scream at loud enough, no one I could shove hard enough, no motorcycle fast enough to stop the inevitable slide toward Death’s door.
“I’m sorry,” Emilio whispered. The regret in his eyes matched the regret in my heart, black and heavy. “I didn’t mean . . . I just . . . I don’t want anything to happen to him. Or to you. I can’t even—”
“Get out,” I said softly.
“Jude . . .”
“Please go,” I whispered. I couldn’t face him any
more, couldn’t breath through the impossibly thick air, couldn’t carry the weight of so much sorrow on my shoulders, and he left without another word, another touch.
I sat on the bench where he’d stumbled and covered my ears like a kid, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the rumble of his bike, ragged and low as it ferried him away.
Chapter 26
The battered orange Jeep bounced up our driveway two days later. Emilio was a no-show, and as I watched Samuel climb out of his truck, I knew he was here as a favor to his friend, to finish up the work Emilio had started.
“Hey, mamí,” he said when I met him outside. “E sent me to—”
“Unbelievable. He can’t finish the job himself?” I asked. “Sent you to do his dirty work? Where is he?”
Samuel put his hand up, shielding his eyes from the sun. Or maybe from me. “I look like his secretary or some shit?”
“When did you last see him?”
“We hung out last night.”
“Did he say anything?” I asked.
“He said lots of things, Jude: Hey, Samuel. Pass me the remote. You got any Doritos? I hate this show.”
“Samuel.” I rolled my eyes to the sky. If all boys insisted on being this dumb, I’d have to start my own book—The Book of Broken Skulls. Because that’s exactly what I was about to do to every last one of them. “I don’t care about Doritos! What did he say about me?”
“What is going on here, girl?” Samuel laughed. “We at a slumber party? You wanna talk about boys and paint my nails?” He wriggled his fingers in my face.
Why do they all have such contagious smiles?
“Stop.” I swiped his hands away. “I’m trying to be mad at boys right now. You’re seriously messing up the flow.”
“Sorry. How’s this. Damn, mamí, that shirt makes you look kinda fat. Shorts ain’t doin’ you any favors either.”
I flashed him a death stare. “They’re my sister’s clothes. They aren’t even my regular size.”